this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2025
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It's because the Moderates (aka. Republicans in blue suits) control the party and it's been this way for far too long.
It's the same reason Nancy Pelosi kept stepping on AOC's toes and even worked to keep her out of key committee positions, despite her being popular with a lot of Democratic voters.
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Yeah, they're not meek or cowards.
They bravely stand up to their own base.
What is this from?
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Call your senators, they can still block this despite Schumers push. The vote is tomorrow. If all republican vote for it, they need 7 dems. 8 with Rand Paul who has said he'll vote no. (Republicans are not using reconciliation so it needs the the filibuster)
Many senate dems are publicly coming out against voting for cloture (meaning they won't vote to let it get through the filibuster). As of what I last read, around ~~11~~ 10 dems are thought to potentially vote to let it pass filibuster. Most of those are still not sure. We only need a handful more of those to become noes and it will get blocked. Some yeses have flipped to noes because of public pressure. We cannot let up now
Link to find direct numbers your senators
https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm
Or call the capitol switch board (202) 224-3121
House dems are publicly telling the senate not to do this (and it's not just AOC on this - it's quite a few of them). Earlier read that 7 Dem state AGs are saying the same. Federal worker unions are telling senate dems not do this. Keep the pressure up
One thing to keep in mind though...
I was outraged a minute ago, but now I'm not sure.
When the government is shut down, so are the courts, and we need them.
How one branch is capable to shut down apparently a co-equal branch of the government?
Not immediately
Unlike executive branch agencies, the federal courts can continue operations for about two weeks following a government shutdown. When a shutdown loomed in September 2019, the U.S. federal courts confirmed they could use reserve or carryover funds accumulated from various revenue sources not dependent on Congress, such as case filing fees. When courts are on notice that a government shutdown may be looming, they can take steps to conserve funds by deferring non-critical expenses — for example, by curbing travel, new hires, and certain contracts.
Plus voting in favor of this CR would be codifying much of what these cases are about. Many of the illegal spending cuts would become legal until September making the cases moot.
It would also fuck over DC local government in a way the executive branch cannot easily do. Congress can control DC budgets but very little of the DC budget comes from federal money (<1%) where Trump could mess with. The CR has a clause to cut $1 billion from their budget despite that not saving the federal government any money
That's a good point. Looks like both ways are bad, but voting yes, still looks worse.
Indeed, there's a reason the Federal Worker Unions are saying to vote against the CR despite the likely shutdown that would entail
Plus it would teach senate Republicans that they can do basically whatever they want as long as they threaten a shutdown. You have to stand up strong to bullies it's the only thing they understand
Which are the 11?
Turns out it was actually 10 as I accidentally counted Cortez Masto as two people whoops
Schumer, Hassan, Peters, Durbin, Schatz, King, Shaheen, Fetterman, Cortez Masto and Gillibrand
https://bsky.app/profile/joshtpm.bsky.social/post/3lkbxyja44s2c
In terms of what's more confirmed by statement and such here's one tracker that seems to somewhat regularly update
They're not meek, they're bought.
It’s really hard to remove bought politicians when it’s the rule and not the exception
That's why I am 99% certain America gets a civil war. When half the population are so mentally ill that they support Trump, and the other half so brainwashed they blame progressives for Trump — the only group that has consistently warned that conservatism and neoliberalism will result in fascism — you can't simply "deprogram" them.
One major reason Europe rebounded after WW2 is because the vast majority of fascist "true believers" died in the war, and fascist leadership was executed. Europe essentially had a political and sociological "reset". Without that, America's cancer will continue to grow and fester. If civil war does not happen, or the fascists win it, the world gets US fascist imperialism and WW3 in the 2030's; give or take a few years.
Only if you play by the rules.
no one is this meek. this is collusion. they're complicit, and it's not by accident. they've always been this way.
Democratic politicians suck up Super PAC money the same as Republicans. It's just that Republicans just do other forms of corruption out in the open because they know their voters are too stupid to notice.
Trump scamming people with memecoin currency, MAGA doesn't care.
Bingo
I've often been a defender of Democrats being realistic, but Schumer is on some bullshit here.
It’s unclear what, if anything, Schumer got in return for his decision to allow the House bill to proceed
Says it all right there. The Republican bill was just a list of laughably insane things they knew Democrats would oppose so they could blame the shutdown on them. It actually cuts funding of DC's local budget forcing them to fire teachers and even cops. Again, nothing to do with the federal government. It just grabs power from a local government and says that they can't use their own local tax revenues to educate kids and fight crime. It's complete rabid insanity that has no point other than to bully a blue city. And Schumer's like "Sure, ok. whatever."
The budget also cuts medicare and medicaid by some pretty substantial amounts, among many other government programs.
This is the CR. This allows for more time to work on that budget... which only needs 51 votes because of reconciliation.
Ah, ok. Kind of weird that they would even bother with a CR when they could just move the debt ceiling with the budget proposal? Still, a weight is lifted knowing that it isn't coming to pass right away.
The US has no form of vote of no confidence. So therefore no way to have consequences for bad governing outside of the voting period, which has its own problems. Importantly here is the need for quick backlash rather than wait two or more years to choose someone else (if there is anyone else allowed to be a pick).
A lot of the flaws in the government are inherent from the beginning because there were certain expectations assumed, and that a document of rules can't be perfect the first, second, or even only a third time. It needs consistent revisions to keep up with the needs of the group it is designed for. This is where the biggest failure has happened, and can be attributed to lack of attention, not wanting to change what seems to work, sacred holding of what was never meant to be set in stone, or just that it often benefited not being changed at the time by those with the power to change it.
Add to all that a very short attention spanned public, fine tuned to be ignorant and forgetful as well as easily manipulated by the simplest of sound bites.
The rot is in the walls. Not that the American Experiment was a bad thing, it's just that it wasn't maintained and updated, so you get eventual decay.
Kevin McCarthy would still be the house leader if that were 100% true. Congressional leadership can changed with enough intrer-party pressure. Schumer is highly unlikely to face any expulsion vote from congress, but he could more realistically be stripped of leadership position. This is a breaking point that might actually build that pressure and we can play a roll in that by calling your senators.
Not delaying Trump's nominees with all tools (only some of them) isn't nearly serious as him pushing to give up the one piece of genuine dem leverage until September for basically no gain. Directed pressure - not on social media - but in places senators can see will let us do it. That means calling them, emailing them, hell even faxing, showing up in person to their office and town halls, etc.
Also do this for the bill vote itself too before tomorrow morning. See my comment about we can still block this vote
They backed down on govt funding? They backed down, didn't they?
Not they. So far it's only Schumer and Fetterman, and Fetterman was a lost cause anyway.
Next time I'm donating to the strokes act blue.
The dnc is just controlled opposition. The Democratic Party is the only chance to push the country left but the establishment is working against it and these old fucking ghouls are the elite still and much closer to their Republican “counterparts” than they are to us.
We have to vote the dinosaurs out of office, if we ever get to vote again.
If someone who has been in office doing their job for decades and still hasn't changed much .... why does anyone expect them to do anything different now?
No one does. That's why they need to go.
I love how these conversations happen many times every session, but then campaign time comes and everyone calls me a Russian asset for reminding people of what the "Blue No Matter Who" mentality gets you.
The time to have that conversation is before and during the primaries. After that, it's not a worthwhile conversation.
The message isn't the issue, your timing is.
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Liberals are, for all their talk, in a Stockholm Syndrome kind of love with the DNC. BlueMAGA is some combination of a death cult and an abusive relationship.
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Trump will destroy America and blame democrats if we don't fully back Trump destroying America, including removing congressional power to block the destruction of America while it is done.
On blame, easy path is push for clean CR that will keep government open, or reopen, when house votes on it when they feel like coming back to work. GOP will be blamed for the shutdown.
At some point the people will have to use their check on power. The second Amendment.
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So like... what the fuck even happens in a government shutdown?
How does power shift when that happens?
People who can afford not to get their paychecks anymore can still show up for work, the President, the Treasury, and Military will be operating at full capacity, but federal workers will no longer receive payment and will likely be forced to quit and congress might remain in recess for a long time.
I don't know the details of the powers trump would have under a shutdown so I'll have to reserve judgement on this one. Some of the dems are acting a little shell shocked since this chaos started though so you wonder if they can be useful again.
Reading a bit it seems the funding bill in its current form basically cuts their remaining healthcare and removes most congressional oversight on how money is actually spent, among other things.
If so then yea it's probably not better than a shutdown.
Republicans created a dilemma though, the bill legalizes and gives trump more power, not then of government is shut down, so are the courts.
Looks like we are fucked either way.
I guess the people will be compelled to hold an impromptu no-confidence referendum with bricks and molotovs for ballots.
'No' is not enough.
No capitulation.
I normally think of politicians as day workers. No one is going to risk hiring (bribing) them in fear of Trump's retaliation. The only work they can get is turning "traitor" to get Republican bills through.
Jesus Christ I'm sick of government shutdown drama. Do your jobs and figure out the budget on time, you fucking assholes.
They have. Republicans are in charge rn, and they decided to gut 2 trillion in programs like Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, and a shitload of other stuff so that they can feel slightly better about the 4.5 Trillion deficit they're going to add by extending their tax cuts for the rich.
That's why a lot of people are upset enough to want the government to shut down rather than face that reality.
I miss Anthony Weiner
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